Department of Health

Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme PPRS Payment for 2016

Lord Prior of Brampton: I am announcing today the level of payment due from members of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) in 2016 to keep health service spend on branded medicines within the levels agreed under the Scheme. The PPRS payment percentage for 2016 will be 7.80%.The PPRS allows patients access to the medicines they need while maintaining affordability for the NHS and providing stability for industry in support of the Government’s innovation and growth agenda. There is an agreed, fixed limit on the majority of NHS spend on branded medicines with additional expenditure above this level paid for by the pharmaceutical companies. The agreed growth limit in both 2014 and 2015 was 0%. Annual growth will be limited to 1.8% in 2016, 1.8% in 2017 and 1.9% in 2018. Small companies with less than £5 million of sales a year to the health service are exempted.The Government welcomes the pharmaceutical industry's agreement to increase its payments to the Department of Health in 2016 compared to the amount agreed in the amendment to the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) published in August 2015. This supports the Government’s NHS funding commitment made at the Spending Review to deliver the Five Year Forward View. This represents a payment of monies that would have been due in 2017 and 2018 under the PPRS and will support industry and government efforts to improve patient access to new clinically and cost-effective medicines.The Department has published a document setting out further details entitled “Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme 2014: revised forecasts and profile of payment percentages at December 2015”. A copy is attached.



PPRS Payment Percentages
(Word Document, 30.1 KB)

Department for Transport

British Road Safety Statement

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: The government is committed to investing in national road safety; this is not solely because of the tragic human consequences of road deaths and injuries. Safer roads and safer road users save lives, but they also help to reduce pressure on the NHS and emergency services, keep traffic moving and, as a result, keep our economy growing.My honourable Friend, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, Andrew Jones, is today publishing a Road Safety Statement that sets out the government’s vision, values and priorities for improving the safety of Britain’s roads. This statement describes the context of road safety in Britain today and the overarching scope of road safety activity for the government. It will be followed by consultations on specific issues as options are developed. The statement covers road safety policy within Britain as governed by the Department for Transport (DfT).In the short and medium term, the main specific actions that we will take include:Outlining our proposals on dangerous in-car mobile phone use, reported by the RAC as being one of motorists’ top concerns, with a view to increasing penalties for drivers using a hand-held mobile phone. This Road Safety Statement will be followed shortly by a more detailed consultation and impact assessment on this topic. The increases proposed are:o that the vast majority of first time offenders will not incur a fixed penalty notice or penalty points but will instead be offered an educational course. Whether to invite a motorist to a course is at the discretion of the police;o for the majority of vehicles (cars, vans, motorbikes), an increase from the current 3 penalty points to 4;o an increase in the level of the fixed penalty notice from the current £100 to £150;o more significant penalties for larger vehicles, such as HGVs, where the consequences of a collision can be much more severe, so that the penalty points increase from the current 3 to 6.A £750,000 grant in 2015/16 for police forces in England and Wales to build drug-driving enforcement capability, consulting on options for a drug-drive rehabilitation scheme course and a High Risk Offenders regime for drug-drivers;Consulting on legislative changes to improve urban cycle safety by ensuring that sideguards and rear under-run devices are not removed from HGVs but remain permanently fitted;Consulting on proposals to support safety for motorcyclists, who account for 19% of all road deaths, including better training and improved safety equipment;Consulting on ways to incentivise and reward the uptake of more pre-test practice, as announced in our Motoring Services Strategy consultation[1] on 13th November, and a broader range of real-world driving experiences, including deregulating to allow Approved Driving Instructors with dual-controlled cars to offer lessons on motorways to learner drivers;Undertaking a £2 million research programme to identify the best possible interventions for learner and novice drivers; andUndertaking a road safety management capacity review, to identify areas for improved joint working, local innovation and efficiency. A copy of the Road Safety Statement will be placed in the House Libraries and will also be available on the government website: www.gov.uk.   [1] Motoring Services Strategy consultation, Department for Transport, published November 2015